And Maybe We Kind of Belong Together
by little red after the wolf
Summary: AU All she wanted was a good boyfriend for her brother. — darling pan, panfire.


The Bird house was a bit of a wreck that night, a disheveled Sofia was trying to calm a screaming Edgar (complete with war paint coating his cheeks and the Indian headdress she almost regrets making), Percy was screeching bloody murder as he tried to beat one of Ed's toys away from him with his umbrella, Mr. Bird was bellowing at his children for their chaos, Mrs. Bird was struggling to reason with her furious husband, and Nana was running around, trying desperately to preserve what she had cleaned of the toys left around. But Neal was absent.

The dark haired boy had gone out in town that night—not that there was much to do in Storybrooke—with his new boyfriend. Sofie hadn't really caught the boy's name yet. She hadn't even seen a picture of this supposed wonder.

At the moment, she was far too concerned with coaxing her youngest brother into coming down and letting her clean him off to give much thought to her adoptive brother's boyfriend.

"Eddie, _please _just let me get that paint off your face," she almost whaled in her desperation.

"No washing! Edgar goes _days _without bath!" The young boy roared.

How she regretted telling the stupid tales of Peter Pan and Neverland now. If they hadn't whined so much for a story and if she hadn't caved and told them about Neverland she wouldn't have to _deal _with any of this now.

"Not necessarily a bath," she tried to reason, "just getting that off your face."

But Edgar is seven and it's not often that seven year olds argue with reason.

She heard the door open—somehow—over the ruckus. Neal was home! With some tall, broad shouldered boy she had never seen in her life, though his eyes did seem familiar.

"I'm home?" The hazel eyed boy announced, trying to muster a reassuring look for the other boy.

"Bae! Please, please, please help me get Eddie down from there!" Sofia pleaded, her eyes frantic and needy.

"I dunno if I can reach him, I'm not that much taller than you," he noted.

"Can _he _help me then? Please, Dad just stomped out with Mum and if I don't have Ed cleaned up and on the ground soon, he'll yell," she groaned slightly.

"_He _is Mason, my boyfriend," Neal noted, "and he can help if he'd like to. Would you?"

The green eyed boy—"Mason"—let a smirk slip over his mouth, casually sauntering over to the blonde girl, "gladly." He reached up with lean, muscled arms and something Sofia couldn't see flashed in his eyes. "C'mon, mate, just let your poor sister wash you off."

Ed, who always hid behind his sister at the sight of strangers, eased into Mason's grasp. He let the small boy bounce in his arms for a second before handing him to Sofia with a dazzling smile.

"I'm Mason, Mason Charming," he introduced himself as she scrubbed the war paint off of her brother's cheeks. She set him down and removed the headdress before turning to the lean boy.

"I'm Sofia Bird, but my friends call me Sofie," she gave a graceful curtsy.

A chuckle escaped his lips before he returned the gesture with a bow.

Neal smiled as he helped Percy dust himself off, whispering, "it's happening, Perce, Sofie approves!"

"A little much though, don't you think?" The smaller boy noted, his eyebrows twisting together at the soft giggle escaping their sister.

"No, no, I'm sure … Mace is pan (or did he say bi?) but …" Neal trailed off as Sofie wrapped her arms around his neck and thanked him.

* * *

So, maybe, perhaps, she liked Mason a little more than she should. Well, considering he was dating her brother, it was more than a little.

But it was nothing, besides the fact that he was so good with her little brothers and as charming as his last name implied and his eyes pierced her soul and he had this confidence to him that made her knees weak and those little smiles (well, smirks on his side) they'd exchanged as they played footsie under the table and the way he hadn't laughed at her old fashioned thank you and had bowed back, it was absolutely nothing.

Sofia was sure of that.

Even as he smirked at her across the hall. And her stomach did a little flip.

* * *

It wasn't until he murmured something to her while they got a friendly lunch one weekend (even with the absence of Neal, who Mason had spent all of the movie night that Friday cuddling with, anyways) that she thought anything of it.

"You look more like a Wendy than a Sofie."

It was completely innocent. It was just an observation. But there was still a playful little glimmer in his eyes that made her fingers tighten around her soda.

"Henry thinks that too," she said, "he thinks I'm Wendy Darling and that my little brothers are Michael and John, I don't know what he thinks about Bae though. Silly, isn't it? Who does he think you are?" She wasn't sure if she wanted to smack herself for babbling so much or him for having such gorgeous eyes so attentively focused on her.

"Pan. Peter Pan," he smirked. Part of her wanted to slap the smirk off his face as she froze up.

_Peter and Wendy didn't end up together,_ she reminded herself, firmly, _and he's your bloody brother's boyfriend, knock it off, Wendy. _Something rose in her throat when she realized she had called herself "Wendy."

She desperately wished to put her nose firmly back into a book with Ruby at her side again.

"He thinks we should kiss," Mason continued, something unrecognizable in his voice, "to break the curse. He thinks True Love's Kiss will do the trick."

Sofie could feel the blood in her face and her heart behind her ribs. She sent a wild, helpless look in Ruby's direction, silently pleading for the girl to save her. Ruby didn't catch it as she flirted with a customer.

"It's silly," she gulped, forced to face him.

"Is it?" His eyebrow shot up and she wasn't sure if it was endearing or infuriating. She could swear he was doing this on purpose now, that he knew she liked him.

"Of course, fairy tales aren't real, it'd be lovely if they were, but, even if they are, you and I, we aren't in love. You're dating my brother, after all," she listed, trying to avoid his sparkling, vibrant eyes. She couldn't lose herself in that forest again.

"Don't be so sure, darling," he winked. It took Sofie a long time to find her voice again, and by then, Peter, or Mason, or whoever he was, was out the door.

The realization that he was making her pay for them both hit her harder than his implication. "Hey!" He was an _awful _boy, who just happened to have stupidly pretty eyes and be perfect. "Hmph."


End file.
